an online magazine for poetry & short fiction

Why sleep is
always hungry.
Called here,
the Black Pullet.
Its womb lined
with dark yellow.

Dreams never come
fast enough.
Like the way
they keep bad news
from you
in hospitals.

To see what’s on
the inside of that
white fish belly.
To remove
the soft bones
of an unborn child.

*****

AMONG THE ORGANS

Where the root of him lay
It was always unseasonable
The wind smelling without history
He took one breath per year
To read through the night’s salt
Poured upon the table
And listen to the ground river
In the pocket of his breast
Remain on unpainted
Invisible as music of moths
Pulled free from a spiderweb

Brian Foley is the author of The Black Eye (Brave Men Press, 2010). He edits SIR! Magazine and Brave Men Press and was recently selected by Pam Rehm for the Academy of American Poets prize. He lives in Massachusetts.